Thirteen people were killed last week in Binghamton, N.Y., when a gunman, identified by authorities as 41-year-old Jiverly Wong, executed a mass shooting at the American Civic Association. The aftermath of that bloodshed has raised many questions, including whether armed, everyday citizens could take down such a gunman and save lives. Could you protect yourself if you only had a gun?

There are 250 million guns in the United States, enough for almost every man, woman and child to arm themselves. The FBI performed 12 million gun-related background checks in 2008, according to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. And with more than 50 deaths resulting from mass shootings in the past month alone, the argument for ordinary citizens arming themselves in schools, workplaces and anywhere else continues to grow.

But if teachers at Colorado's Columbine High School or the students and faculty of Virginia Tech University had concealed or open-carry permits, range training and loaded handguns mixed with their school supplies, could they have taken down men armed to the teeth, ready to die and acting under the element of surprise?

Watch "If I Only Had a Gun" tonight on a special edition of "20/20" at 10 p.m. ET

Some, like the group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, which claims to have more than 38,000 members, think it would at least give people a better chance to survive.

Matt Guzman, leader of the advocacy group's Texas chapter, said that an armed student or citizen might even be more effective in taking down a gunman than law enforcement.

But if teachers at Colorado's Columbine High School or the students and faculty of Virginia Tech University had concealed or open-carry permits, range training and loaded handguns mixed with their school supplies, could they have taken down men armed to the teeth, ready to die and acting under the element of surprise?

Gee.....I guess we'll never know as the choice wasn't even available. I hate libtards.

The article very accurately describes adrenaline dump (tunnel vision, loss of fine motor skills) and raises an excellent question about whether carrying a handgun would help the average person thru a shooting crisis. And it provides excellent advice on what you can do if you don’t happen to have a gun handy.

I wish we could get ABC here in New Zealand: I’d be fascinated to see how the students do in the simulation. I will go out on a limb and speculate, tho’ — I suspect it’s not as easy for them as pull-out-the-Glock-and-shoot-the-Bad-Guy. I bet most of them adrenaline dump and freeze up.

I’d be really grateful if someone could watch this one and tell me how it goes.

Whether it gets me out of shootings or not, I want the freedom to decide for myself, and not be lorded over by mandarins and their armed enforcers. I will go to my grave before I relinquish my personal weapons, or my right to lawfully carry and use them.

>>The article very accurately describes adrenaline dump (tunnel vision, loss of fine motor skills) and raises an excellent question about whether carrying a handgun would help the average person thru a shooting crisis.<<

This is why a person’s choice of handgun needs to be based on how much dedication they will put into it. If you buy a gun with the intention of “load and forget”, you need a revolver. It’s better than nothing, because if your motor skills are too degraded to shoot a revolver, you sure won’t be able to dial a cell phone, use pepper spray, or a knife, or any other weapon.

(I’m not implying that a revolver is only “better than nothing”. I mean that a revolver plus no practice or training is better than nothing. I love revolvers! I carry one for defense and I have a safe full of semi-autos at home. I stopped a knife-wielding mugger with a revolver.)

What stops you from being misidentified as The Shooter and gunned down by somebody else who is also carrying a gun?

"The Shooter" is a stranger that walks around and shoots everywhere. He is likely to have two handguns, or a rifle or a shotgun. He is not hiding.

"You" are someone who is hiding behind some furniture and shooting a handgun at the shooter.

If the difference between the two is not obvious, don't shoot. This rule always applies: "Be sure of your target and what is in front of and beyond your target."

If the incident happens in an office or any place where people know each other (like maybe a smaller church) then chances of misidentification are even smaller.

But if despite all of that your 3rd person makes a judgement mistake and tries to shoot you ... well, chances of that are still lower than chances of a determined madman to eventually find you and kill you. There is no guaranteed way to walk out of such situation; you can only talk about probabilities. If none of the victims are armed then their probability of survival is about zero. Anything that improves that is a plus.

Opponents also point out that most people are ill-prepared to handle a gun. Only six states, for instance, require any kind of training before issuing a routine permit to own a gun

The amount of training required by government is cursory at best.

Whether states require this minimal training, or not, it is incumbent upon the individual gun owner to learn and practice on his/her own, and then to maintain this throughout their lifetime.

We don't need, or WANT, government to tell what we have to do to exercise our 2nd Amendment rights, and to exercise individual responsibility.

I would also say that MANY of us, particularly those of us that have been shooting since we were young, and/or that were in the military for any length of time, are likely BETTER trained than the average police officer that has done neither of those two things.

> (Im not implying that a revolver is only better than nothing. I mean that a revolver plus no practice or training is better than nothing. I love revolvers! I carry one for defense and I have a safe full of semi-autos at home. I stopped a knife-wielding mugger with a revolver.)

Before I emigrated to New Zealand, I owned a few guns. I preferred revolvers to semiautomatics because I was much more accurate with them, usually. I could work the hammer with my left thumb and the trigger with my right forefinger and never flinch. I felt less in control with a semiautomatic, even tho’ shooting them was “easier”. And I was way less accurate and I did flinch.

I believe it is a really big assumption that having a room full of armed people would stop an armed perpetrator from racking up a large bodycount. I’m not saying it would or it wouldn’t — but I am saying it is an untested assumption. I do not know whether your odds are better if armed or unarmed. It is an untested assumption that your odds are better armed.

But what if you are armed and get mistaken for the Perpetrator, the Shooter? Suddenly you have a dozen-or-so bullets to dodge from the other armed citizens — REAL FAST. Your chances of survival just dropped a fair bit. As they say in the Army, “friendly fire isn’t.”

And what about all the bullets that are likely to be flying around, while everyone is trying to hit the Shooter? It would be nice if they all found their target accurately, and stopped in the Shooter’s body. But we all know that doesn’t happen in real life. And in an enclosed room, what is the likelihood of there being lead flying all over the place?

I’m not sure that it wouldn’t be safer finding cover somewhere and getting down real low — snake-height or lower — and leaving the firefight to those who want it.

I don’t know: it’s all an untested assumption. That is why the ABC’s show would be interesting to watch. Like I said, I wish we could receive it here in NZ. I’d be interested to hear from anyone who does watch it, see how it all turns out.

All of what you say makes perfect sense, and it is logical. And I’d even agree with the correctness of the theory.

But it all still relies on alot of assumption: for example, it assumes that everybody who is packing heat is operating in a rational fashion and has the mental presence to think things thru (”do I know that person?” or “who’s behind the shooter?” or “Is Mary-Anne the shooter? Has she flipped out?”).

Actually that last one is a biggie: you’ve assumed that the shooter is someone unknown to everybody else. That wouldn’t have been true in the Virginia Tech case. Who’s to say the shooter isn’t your best mate that you’ve worked with for 20 years?

Please don’t misinterpret me: I believe in your right to keep and bear arms, and I sure wish I had that right here, where I live in NZ.

I do think it is an assumption, tho’, that having everybody armed all the time would necessarily do much to avoid incidents like what happened in New York last week. Or even reduce the body count by much. I don’t know whether it would or it wouldn’t: it’s an untested assumption.

And you know what they say about Assumptions being the Mother of All Stuff-Ups...

But if teachers at Colorado's Columbine High School or the students and faculty of Virginia Tech University had concealed or open-carry permits, range training and loaded handguns mixed with their school supplies, could they have taken down men armed to the teeth, ready to die and acting under the element of surprise?

Yes. Bullets affect the bad guy's bodies the same way they do anyone else's body.

I will go out on a limb and speculate, tho  I suspect its not as easy for them as pull-out-the-Glock-and-shoot-the-Bad-Guy. I bet most of them adrenaline dump and freeze up.

Of course they will all do poorly.

But the show harps on the point of these mass-shootings and then focuses on one individual trying to counter a direct threat. Why not emphasize that if just ONE student in the halls or in a classroom adjacent to the first one getting shot up at Virginia Tech was armed, that person could possibly have saved many, many lives. In that case, the time could be taken to draw the weapon and plan the attack.

Instead, they will make it look like it doesn't matter if you carry or not (and point out it's safer if you don't, I'm sure) mass shootings will still happen.

Actually that last one is a biggie: youve assumed that the shooter is someone unknown to everybody else. That wouldnt have been true in the Virginia Tech case.

It is my understanding that the shooter entered very large arena type room(s) full of kids, and started blasting. There could be little doubt who the shooter was, and if one kid had pulled a gun and shot the a-hole, your theory would be out the window.

As it was, not one of those killed had a chance, and I doubt that they would have minded if someone tried to help.

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